Still not tearing his gaze away from the puzzle, he asked, “Good movie?”
“I liked it.”
“Hmmph,” he grunted, and then muttered to himself as he ticked off the letters in the small boxes. “C… Down… Yeah… It works… Never saw that movie. Guess I should take Kathy out a little more often.”
Constance watched quietly from the doorway as he filled in the blanks, then purposefully scratched through the clue in a column off to the side of the puzzle. He scanned the crossword box while reaching up and absently combing through his mustache with his fingers. After a languid pause, he laid the paper to the side then tossed the stub of a pencil on top of it before rocking back in his chair and locking gazes with her.
“Are you just going to stand there, or are you going to come in and sit down?” he finally asked.
“I think I’ll just go ahead and stand this time, Sheriff,” she replied.
She was leaning to the side with her shoulder against the doorframe and her coat carefully draped over her arm. Her eyes were hard beneath a creased brow and her lips were a tight, thin line. Other than that, her face was a tired, emotionless mask.
Skip waited a beat, never taking his eyes off her, then drew in a deep breath and exhaled a heavy “Suit yourself, Special Agent.”
“I have to admit,” she said after her own short pause. “I was surprised to see your cruiser parked out front when I passed by. I wasn’t expecting to have this conversation with you until tomorrow.”
“Been waiting,” he grunted. “I was hoping you’d show up.”
Constance cocked her head to the side. “Were you really?”
“Sugar, I could be home in bed right now. Hell, if you were anything like your predecessors, I damn well would be, because none of them ever bothered to stick around this long.”
“How did you know I didn’t just go ahead and leave like the others?”
“I didn’t, for sure…but I had you pegged as different from the day you showed up, so I had my hopes.”
“More of your uncanny powers of observation?”
He shrugged. “Actually, more like a gut feeling on that one. Oh, believe me, I had a moment of self-doubt when I drove by the Greenleaf earlier and saw your car was gone. But I checked with Artie and he said you hadn’t officially checked out, and the desk clerk said you weren’t carrying any bags when you left.”
“Do you have any idea how creepy it is that you people spy on everyone like that?” she asked.
“Small town, Constance. That’s just how it is. Most of the time everybody knows your business and you know theirs. Hard to keep a secret in Hulis, trust me.”
“It almost makes me wonder if there’s a hidden camera in my shower too,” she quipped, sarcasm so heavy in the words it double-underscored the comment.
Skip replied, “Depends. Which room did they put you in?”
She raised an eyebrow and glared, but said nothing.
“Kidding, sugar. I was just kidding.”
“I’m not really in the mood for jokes right now, Skip.”
“Yeah…” he grunted. “I guess you wouldn’t be, would you.”
Thick silence fell between them. The staring contest continued, but unlike the doctor in Mais, Constance didn’t see Carmichael as the type to cave because she made him nervous. She knew better than that. She also had a feeling he was thinking the same thing about her.
Before the standoff could turn into a prolonged stalemate, the sheriff spoke up, breaking the silence with an offhanded announcement. “I don’t know about you, but I need a drink.”
He slowly rocked the old desk chair forward on the complaining springs, and then leaned to the left and tugged open a drawer. Without further pomp or comment, he reached in, withdrew a sealing-wax-dipped bottle of bourbon, and settled it on the desk blotter. He followed that by extracting two short tumblers from the depths of the drawer and placing them next to the fifth of booze.
Carmichael shoved the drawer closed with a thump, then unscrewed the cap on the bottle, tipped it up, and carefully poured a measure of the dark amber liquor into one of the glasses. When he finished, he gave Constance a questioning look and nodded toward the empty tumbler.
“What the hell… Yeah…” she muttered, pushing away from the doorframe and stepping over to the straight-backed chair opposite him. She draped her coat over the back then parked herself.
“If you want ice, you’ll have to check the break room,” Skip told her as he filled the second glass and then spun the cap back onto the bottle. He pushed the three fingers of booze across the desk to her before picking up his own tumbler. He took a healthy sip then cradled it in his hands as he allowed his creaking chair to rock back once again.
Constance emulated the latter two actions: sipping, and then using the bulk of her coat as a cushion for the hard back of her chair as she leaned against it. She stared at her hands, contemplating the bourbon for a moment, and then finally she sighed and looked up across the desk at the sheriff.
“I just came back from Highland County Hospital in Mais,” she said.
“Yeah…” Skip nodded. “Not surprised. I figured you might decide to talk to Edgar after all.”
“He had some interesting things to say about December twenty-fifth, nineteen seventy-five.”
He snorted, but there was no derision, just sullen acceptance. With a shake of his head he added, “I’m sure he did.”
“Should I assume he was telling me the truth?”
“Guess that depends on how much sense he was making at the time.”
“What if he wasn’t making any sense?”
“Him, or what he told you?” he asked in return. “There’s a difference.”
“Yes… I suppose there is.” Constance sipped the whiskey again and let its smooth burn run down the back of her throat, spreading warmth in its wake. Then she asked, “Okay, then; why the lies, Skip?”
“Like I said this morning, you wouldn’t have believed me until you saw it for yourself. Just like you wouldn’t have believed Edgar if he’d told you his story yesterday instead of today.”
“But what about the rest of it? You could have filled me in this morning. Especially after what you showed me at the crime scene.”
He shook his head. “Neither of us was in any shape for that and you know it. That’s why I came by the Greenleaf this evening. I figured once you and I had both had some sleep we could talk about it and you wouldn’t think I was completely insane.”
“Fair enough,” she agreed. “Well… I’m here now, and I’ve had that sleep. I assume you have too?”
“Yeah.”
“Then I’d like to hear your version,” she said. “I think you may be able to fill in some of the blanks Edgar left.”
“Yeah…” he said. “You know, you’ll be the first since Agent Graham, and he thought I was crazy.”
She nodded. “I know.”
Skip looked at the tumbler in his hands, then brought it to his lips, tipped it up and drained it in a single gulp. Rocking back forward, he refilled the glass with another healthy measure of the amber alcohol and then carefully brushed his mustache, apparently pondering his words. After a long pause, he pursed his lips and sighed, then settled back in the chair once again and swallowed hard. His eyes were vacant and fixed. He was no longer staring at Constance, he was staring through her; looking thirty-five years into the past as if it were happening before him right now.
He cleared his throat and began, “Everything I’ve already told you about the abduction and finding Merrie is true; I think you’ve already seen that… It’s just some of the things since that have been altered a bit…to protect the innocent, as they say…”
“Yes,” she agreed softly. “And there are the things you left out.”
“Yeah,” he breathed. “That’s the part I’ve been trying my damnedest to forget for thirty-five years.”
“Go on…” Constance urged.
He drew in a deep breath and continued. “Our first concern that morning was Merrie, of course. She needed immediate attention, so I actually didn’t join the search for Colson right away… Fact is, I went with her to the hospital and stayed until her parents arrived. By the time I got back, Sheriff Morton, and Edgar, and everyone else had canvassed several blocks and found the house on Evergreen.”